First Blu-ray Movie Titles Announced 375
JorgeDeLaCancha writes "Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment have recently announced the release of the first titles on the Blu-Ray media coinciding with the Blu-Ray hardware release in the spring. Some of the films to be released include classics such as "The Fifth Element" and "Robocop" to more modern films such as "Black Hawk Down." Other corporations, such as Fox, have announced similar plans."
Screw 'em. (Score:4, Insightful)
Classic. (Score:3, Insightful)
The vicious cycle (Score:5, Insightful)
Picture quality of Robocop? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Screw 'em. (Score:4, Insightful)
Until there is a big enough screen affordable to the regular user to make content like that clearly better than content on a DVD, they can continue pounding salt.
Future problems? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it, after hi-def what comes next? (and don't say internet distribution etc only, people want things they can actually own in their hands)
First it was video cassettes, then dvd and now hi-definition.. each with a definitive quality increase over their predecessor. Now however with high definition they've pretty much hit the wall, people don't need or won't want to buy super-high-deluxe-definition unless they've got a projector which projects the video onto a ridiculously large area.
It will reach a point where it'll be "good enough", you can already see a lot of people commenting about how they don't see the point of hi-def dvd (which people will eventually go over to) when dvd suits them fine.
The human eyeball can only see so much.
Wait a while (Score:2, Insightful)
I read a while back about a new system much better than both Blue-ray and HD-DVD, but I cannot remember what it was called.. (the name of it started with the letter n). Anybody knows anything about this?
I suspect will see the whole DVD history all over again. First we'll get these 25GB discs, then we'll get 50GB discs and of course the first Blue-ray player won't play anything but 25GB discs so we'll need to buy a new player. Then we'll get 100GB discs and we'll need both a new player and a burner.... then there will be discs only compatible with some players and some burners etc.. then there will be discs with 2x speed, then 4x, 8x, 16x and we'll need to upgrade firmware or buy new players/burners again. In 2007 the new 8 layered Blu-ray discs will be out with 200GB capacity, and we'll need burners capable of burning these as well as players for playing these monster discs.
I'll admit I don't know much about these new formats, but I'm looking forward to making backups of my half TB of live shows in FLAC format!
Even better (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whoop de doo. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, they filmed that series with two cameras, a semi decent one that made the sets look a bit plasticy, and something they found in a dumpster. Watching the DVDs you can see the different cameras in use, scene to scene, cut to cut. Decent. Grainy. Decent. Grainy. And they always put the decent camera on the men, and the grainy character on the women. Unforgivable.
It is the last series I would have thought about putting on HD media. Indeed most TV series until the last few years probably haven't got that much resolution.
Also redoing the effects would be an act of sacrilege. You might also get killed by rabid Amiga fans. Video toaster and Lightwave man! 30,000 polygons for B5 itself. Woooo...
Sadly, 90% of the content out there isn't good enough for a bloody iPod video resolution, nevermind HD.
Wait (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Classic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Fight Club? Booo!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The people who own the DVD specs make a ton of money. Even better than a ton of money though, is a yearly stream of license revenue.
You get money from the hardware mfgs and money from the content people. The content people have to pay a license to get that little DVD logo you see on the packaging. Ditto for the hardware guys, but they also have to license whatever fancy encryption scheme you're using.
It is all about the licensing revenue. It is a long-term money maker and is pure profit.
LOL, Ladies and Gentleman, the next Laserdisc (Score:5, Insightful)
The other truth of the matter is, for most intents and purposes, the average person has never exploited how good DVD looks in the first place. They use S-video at best. An anamaphoric-enhanced DVD release (as most theatrical DVDs have been since the 90's), on a progressive scan DVD player with component inputs on a widescreen TV looks damn good. Better than most people will ever wish to have in their home.
The big mistake all of the movie companies are making is that they think we are all itching for something new. We aren't. We don't care. Very few people care about this technology. We'll be well into the next decade before we start lamenting that Wal-Mart is carrying more Blu-Ray/HD discs than DVD. The studios and certain techies keep throwing numbers out there, telling us all what we are supposedly missing...and the joke is going to be on them when these things hit the market with a resounding thud.
Re:Wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
1080p (Score:3, Insightful)
After all, at any resolution, progressive looks better than interlaced because you have twice the data. Makes pans and other motion smoother, more detail, etc.
Too bad you have to buy a very expensive (right now) TV to watch 1080p. But Sony is pushing it with the PS3. 1080p Video games (if they deliver that) and 1080p video.
I still think Blu-ray will win. While this is a definite plus for them (I assume HD-DVD could do this, but I haven't heard of any of the movies or players being able to), if you combine this with the increased storage capacity, the soon to be massive installed base (the PS3), and the availability (within a few months of HD-DVD, and more importantly: before Christmas)... I think things are getting better and better for Blu-ray to win.
It is too bad the NIH syndrome is so big that the two groups couldn't suck it up and make one format. They didn't learn from Beta, I guess. And now that they have a VERY popular entrenched format (DVD) to compete against where Beta didn't (no previous home-video recording equipment), things don't look good on the whole.
Blu-ray will win. It will be a hollow victory. They will beat HD-DVD, but they will only beat DVDs because the studios will stop producing them/selling them. I don't think ANY high-def format is strong enough to take over DVD without resorting to cheating within the next 5 years, at least.
But that depends on the price of HDTVs. If they stay too expensive, then there is no point. If prices crash, then bring on the high-def movies at home.
And kiss theaters further goodbye.
Re:Sadly (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad movies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Smart consumers will stay out of the standards (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Most of the Hollywood studios back Blu-Ray.
2. Blu-Ray's native resolution in 1920x1080 progressive scan, with players currently capable of 720p/1080i video output through HDMI now and 1080p output through HDMI within the next year of so.
Dunno anymore... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays, how sizable is the home porn video market compared to the more anonymous, the more instantly 'gratifying' internet porn market that has presumably overwhelmed DVD/VHS distribution due to the immediacy and anonymity the computer offers. If nothing else, seeing all the computers I've dealt with where people stick porn in places they perceive as obscure suggests they have higher confidence in hiding files on a computer than hiding tapes or discs in their home. Even for the television channels, I would wager people feel safer buying some porn network/pay-per-view and hiding the charges on their credit card they find easier than hiding discs/tapes.
In essence, as amusing it is to think of porn as a huge market force in such a context, it probably isn't realistic to consider it a 'killer app' this time around. However, I doubt Sony will be so prudish this time compared to the Betamax fiasco, just to be on the safe side.
Too bad it won't matter for 24fps film. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now when you upconvert an interlace source (which film is not) to progressive you can get terrible artifacts, but this also depends on the quality of the upconvert hardware/software. Some HDTVs are un-watchable trying to view NTSC, others actually improve the image HUGELY, it all depends on the upconvert algorithms and horsepower assigned.
If you have ever seen 1080I shot live like some of the BRAVO performances you will see that that the image is stunning fluid and better quality than 24fps film. 1080p will be even better when there is a lot of rapid motion of the whole scene. 1080I looks great when filming plays on BRAVO because they avoid exactly this sort of camera motion. 24fps stutters when you scroll and interlace breaks up into a nasty comb effect. 1080P avoids both. And yes this is why gamers are obsessed with frame-rate. Games tend to be nothing but fast motion and pans. Even 120fps isn't overkill for rapid motion. Granted your eye can't see changes at 120fps, BUT -- and this is a big but -- when you have large field rapid motion your eyes will track the apparent motion. The edges will blur as your eye tries to smoothly track a moving image that is actually a series of stills at the frame rate. The only way it could look un-blurred is if your eyes actually tracked them in with a motion that was a series of skips at the frame rate (not even vaguely humanly possible).
For 24fps film 1080I is much better than 720p. 720p is probably a good choice for sports however for all the reasons listed above. OTA transmission doesn't have the bandwidth for 1080p however (at least not with mpeg2). 1080p if pretty close to nirvana for me, past here the gains are so insignificant as to be pointless. But you can always go higher on the frame rate. Shooting stuff in 60fps or higher would likely lead to new filming styles as current ones purposely avoid things that make 24fps look bad.
The film industry should film everything in 60fps whether film or video (and progressive scan only for video). 1080P will look glorious once there is actually material available. This may be the ace in the hole that put Blu-Ray over HD-DVD in a couple of years. But only if content providers wise up and start making 60fps content.
Blu-Ray is marketlicious (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but Blu-ray discs comes in a shiny blue box [ign.com]!
(Seriously, as much as I despise this "format war" and especially Sony, I think Blu-Ray has a much better marketing catch.
Re:Classics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The vicious cycle (Score:1, Insightful)
For me, I'll buy a PS3 and then simply start buying BD discs instead of the DVD version in the future. They can happily sit beside each other in the collection. Besides, since the PS3 will play PS2 games, I can get rid of that thing and have just one device to do everything.
Very convenient.
Well, that's pretty subjective (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been film-based higher frame-rate systems in the past as well, but they never caught on. The problem, as I see it, is that frame rates above about 40fps or so look TOO real. Sets, even well built ones, look like sets -- your brain isn't as easily fooled at 60fps. Even acting tends to look worse -- it's strange, but all the visual cues that are used to convey action and emotion work differently. I suspect that it's possible to develop new film making techniques that would work for high frame rate cinema, but I doubt that it will become universal any time soon. Perhaps eventually when the current generation with its conditioned responses to 24fps drama passes on...
Where I definitely DO see 60fps HD fitting in beautifully is for "experience" kind of things -- rides and simulations and such. It really gives that "looking through a window" feeling that can become really transparent in that situation.
Re:Well, that's pretty subjective (Score:4, Insightful)
I take in IMAX whenever I'm up to Navy Pier in Chicago and I have never said, "oh this would be much better if it looked less fluid." Sony would be smart to get the IMAX catalog quickly available to really distinguish themselves from HD-DVD, and make sure they use the highest bit-rates possible for highest quality 1080P they can achieve. This is the type of move that wins over the videophile early adopters.
Filmmakers will adapt to be sure to high fps formats. Hell, you can always display lower frame rates when you want. Films like Gladiator used a slower frame rate than 24fps for the battle scenes to give it a choppy disorienting feel. I Robot did this in several scenes as well, but in this case it was just annoying.
If you hadn't noticed films are becoming more and more like rides and simulations all the time, though I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing in that is usually for game tie-ins. But hell if they're gonna do it, it might as well look good.
Maybe you could be the first filmmaker to do a 60fps remake of 1968's "Bullitt" [wikipedia.org] with Steve McQueen and redefine chase scenes.
Re:Some education... (Score:3, Insightful)
It could happen that way, it depends on how they price the discs and the players. The problem with LD was that the cheapest players were $300-400 (and that was in 1990 dollars). If they can get an affordable Blu-ray *or* HD DVD player (that is, one that sells for a little over $100) available within a year or so of launch, they'll have people lining up to buy them.
Also, keep in mind that unlike VHS/LD, a Blu-ray (or HD DVD) player will also play DVD (so you get your backwards compatibility) and likely CD as well. With LD you had to own both players (so if you were just looking to upgrade your VCR, you couldn't just buy a LD player and get both out of the box).
Moving pricing will affect this as well, but to a lesser extent (especially if the players are affordable as mentioned above; people won't have a reason not to get one if they can continue to play their DVDs on it). Hopefully the actual street prices (NOT MSRP) aren't more than $30-40 per title. And from what I've heard, many studios plan to do simultaneous day-and-date releases of new movies in Blu-ray/HD DVD (so they'll likely be sitting on the shelf alongside eachother at your local Best Buy/Circuit City).
Anyways, LD/VHS is not a fair comparison methinks. It's possible, but the variables are very different this time around. (And don't forget the copy-protection aspect; studios aren't exactly pleased we can copy DVDs using our PC, and are likely eager to get something better protected to market to curb so-called casual piracy. If nothing else, they could force these new formats onto the market by cutting prices on players/media to speed adoption).
Sneaking in through the back door (Score:3, Insightful)
That's actually a pretty interesting analysis, but wrong for two reasons:
1) Blu-Ray is going to be embedded in a very popular game system, which will in turn mean a lot more owners of players much more quickly and thus more people buying discs. With a greater market acceleration it will pick up fast enough to live unlike LD where it was hard for a long time to convince people to buy players. In fact this same reason (DVD drives in two of the major game systems, XBox and PS2) were part of the reason DVD did not suffer the LD fate.
2) The industry is moving on without you. ALL of the major players, movie studios and electronics makers alike are behind the new format. That means in a few years the only players you'll be able to buy will be BluRay, and likewise for new discs. So people will basically shift because they have to. Unless online video takes off in that timespan and leaves HD media languishing, but I don't think bandwidth providers in the US can get their acts together enough to make that a real possibility.
Re:LOL, Ladies and Gentleman, the next Laserdisc (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the problem with upgrading to Blu-Ray. As consumers get new players (either to upgrade or because their old CyberHome POS broke), PS3s, or new computers, they number of installed BR players will slowly increase. Since they'll all be backwards compatible, you might as well splurge a little and get the BR player over DVD. All the previous movies will work, and as soon as the consumer gets a BR player, they can start purchasing BR media. Eventually they'll have a large collection of BR and DVD media, both of which would work perfectly fine in their media players. Look at CD players on computer: every new computer comes with a DVD player which is backwards compatible with all their CD media. Most people don't choose the DVD player anymore, the CD and DVD drives have reached price parity, so you might as well get a DVD player. The same thing will happen with BR over DVD. BR players and drives will get cheap and eventually just replace DVD players.
As for not wanting it: there may be a small market that really wants BR, but they tend to be the group willing to spend more money and they influence their friends. DVD is old hat, I crave HD. My family watches all their TV in HD now (they've had HD for a long time, but the reception is sketchy, now they get it through cable and are able to time-shift (who watches TV live?)). The footage they see on TV looks noticeably better than the movies they have on disc. DVD is not very high resolution. HD, on the other hand, is beautiful. I've read articles discussing how the average size of TVs is quickly trending up. I believe people now days are more interested in watching movies in their nice home theatre than the movie theatre. As the TVs get bigger and people go to less theatre showings, they will demand better quality and that is where BR comes in. I'm chomping at the bit to transition my family to BR, but if first has to be released and I have to make sure it won't do anything stupid with respect to DRM. Once I am satisfied, I'm all over that shit. Bring it on.
Andrew
PS: 5 years ago (I think) a lot of people still didn't have DVD. I was arguing the benefits of DVD while everyone else thought it was overrated. Now DVD is the standard and people barely talk about VHS anymore.
Screw the whole bloody thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to agree with what someone above said, there's not going to be any more 'formats'... It's all about portability and access of the 'files'. We're at a point now, where sooner rather than later, buying movies and music is really going to be a matter of licensing rather than owning something tangible.
This will be both good and bad. There are some people, me included, who aren't really going to notice the difference... I've actually downloaded DVD ISOs of discs I own, because I couldn't find the damned thing, or downloaded anime preformatted for my PSP. (Or at least, a DVD rip I can transcode.) So, with that becoming sort of the norm, I won't lose much sleep over it. (Besides, I treat physical media terribly to begin with.) But for some people, this will just break them, on a fundamental level. Sucks to be them, but they're simply not fit for the digital world. And I won't lose much sleep over them, either.
Now if only I had Verizon FIOS, and its 15mbps downstram for $40 a month.
No wait, better yet... If only I lived in Japan and could share a 1gbit fiber line with twenty other people for $50 a month....damn, the very thought brings a tears to my eyes... *wrings out his eyepatch*